


The Goatman Bridge

by Serazimei



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural, Crack, Episode: s03e04 The Demonic Goatman's Bridge, Gen, Halloween, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:55:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26948581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serazimei/pseuds/Serazimei
Summary: Jaskier and his boyfriends brother Lambert go out looking for the infamous Goatman for Jaskiers Halloween Special for his Youtube Channel. They don’t know what they got themselves into before it’s too late.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Lambert
Comments: 4
Kudos: 84





	The Goatman Bridge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HamletsBoneArenaBeehivetoBeeorNottoBee7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HamletsBoneArenaBeehivetoBeeorNottoBee7/gifts).



> There's no way I'm letting the spooky month pass by without writing at least one Halloween themed fic. So here you have it~

A black and silver, chunky car parked on a muddy patch close to an assembly of trees that made up the first frontier of a particularly dark forest. Out of that car came two people, one energetic and already chattering a mile a minute, wearing a purple and blue silk button up in combination with dark blue leggins with flower ornaments on them. The other was a bulky guy with cropped black hair and piercing yellow eyes that cut through the darkness like a cats. His fashion was blunt, a dark red shirt that had the line "dyed with the blood of my enemies" on it and dark blue pants that disappeared into the rim of tight combat boots to go with it.

"Lambert come on open the trunk! It’s getting close to midnight, we need to hurry."

"Chill out, Jaskier. You’ll drive away the demons with your screeching. The trunks open by the way."

Jaskier stuck out his tongue at him and yanked the trunk open, or tried to, at least. The only thing he accomplished was nearly dislocating his shoulders.

"Lambert!"

His outcry was only met with laughter, but then the lights blinked again and Jaskier finally got to his stuff. There was a lot of it. They were planning to spend the night in this location and so there were two big bedrolls, two backpacks, one with snacks and one with equipment and of course Jaskiers trusty little camera with nightvision.

"You’re face! Hilarious. Hey what’s that for?" Lambert pointed to the bright water gun Jaskier was about to push into the holster he had fastened to his thigh.

"You don’t think I’ll go sleep on a demon infested bridge without anything to defend myself with, did you?"

"That’s a toy." Lambert managed to get out through his snort. "I’ll bring a real gun with silver bullets next time."

"Ah ah, here is where you’re wrong mister!" Jaskier tutted, waving his little plastic gun around. "Silver is for werewolves! Holy water," and here he pulled the trigger of his weapon, a small stream of clear water shooting out the tip, "is for demons."

Lambert narrowed his eyes at the toy and shook his head. "Whatever makes you sleep tonight. Come on."

Dividing the baggage between them they ventured out into the darkness and soon enough they came across a rather unassuming iron bridge. The occasional whoosh of a car speeding down the nearby highway disturbed the otherwise quiet sounds of nature, calming Jaskiers racing heart as they set their stuff in front of the bridge.

"Ready?" Jaskier asked in a shuddering breath, fiddling with the small camera in his hands, palms sweaty from excitement and fear.

"More than you are."

"Then let’s go! This will be our best season finale, yet!"

"You mean if we catch anything. Otherwise it will be boring as shit."

Jaskier pointed the lense of the camera at Lambert, zooming into his face as he replied. "Always the pessimist! Now dear hearts! You’re probably wondering where we are at this lovely moonlit night. I have to disappoint you, it is not a romantic date in the wildernis. Although this location would probably be something Lambert would pick out for things like that."

Lambert shoved him a bit for that. "Piss off I have great tastes. Get to infodumping already so we can go to the fun part: Watching as you shit your pants."

"I never nor will I ever, shit my pants!" Jaskier sniffed, pointing the camera at himself to show the petulant pout he made. "Can you believe this bastard? Really if Goatman doesn’t push him off the bridge tonight, I will! But yes, where-"

"Get on with it!"

"Don’t rush a masterpiece!" Lambert only laughed at him. They were probably getting sidetracked too much again. No matter, they could cut all the too stupid parts out later. Only Geralt usually edited their videos for them… Well surely someone would find their blend of humor funny. Probably.

"Anyway. We are now at the infamous Goatman Bridge, named after the demonic entity that is supposed to haunt it."

Jaskier rambled off a few facts about their sleeping place for the night, explaining what they were planning to do. First they would step onto the bridge and try to get in contact with the demon in their usual fashion. If talking wouldn’t work, knocking three times on one of the iron beams was supposed to aggravate it. If that didn’t help they would scout the woods close to the structure in search of the entity. In the final phase they would sleep directly on the bridge, hoping to still be alive in the morning.

He left out most the historical facts in his little speech. He had already recorded the script he had written for this episode. It would later be edited in, hopefully with some neat pictures, animation and soundeffects.

"Are you done talking now or do you want to buy some more time before you have to actually step onto that thing."

"I’m done. Here we go."

The first step over the threshold caused a shiver to run down Jaskiers spine. He didn’t know if it was nerves or something else that set him on edge as soon as he had the old wooden boards under his feet.

"This feels weird. Lambert do you feel that, too?"

"What? That it’s fucking cold? It’s October what did you expect?"

"No. There’s this… I don’t know how to describe it."

It felt like electricity. Like the heavy air before a storm. Only different. Jaskier didn’t like it at all.

"Okay. We are standing in the middle of the bridge now. Let’s try to make contact."

Lambert gave him a blank stare. "Uhu. Go on."

Taking a deep breath, Jaskier cleared his throat. This part would always be awkward to him. "Hello Goatman? Are you home? If you’re there, could you please give us a sign? A knock maybe? Or a flash of your eyes? Just… uh… nothing violent, please and thank you."

They stood in silence for a moment. Silence which Jaskier itched to break. His eyes darted around, trying to spy something in the dark. He flinched when he spotted a set of golden lights, before realizing that it had only been those of a car.

"Pfff. Knew your approach wouldn’t work. Here. Let me. Hey Goatman! Nice Bridge you have here! How about I take it from you, hm?"

"Jesus Christ, Lambert!" Jaskier hissed, panic surging through his body. "You can’t just talk to them that way! We have to sleep here!"

"You hear that Goatman? We’ll be here _aaalll_ fucking night. Plenty of opportunities to mess with us, eh? And I’m going to sweeten the pott for you, too! How about I piss on-"

"Lambert!" The screech of his name made Lambert halt in his movement. "Hm?"

"No!" If Jaskier had been dreading sleeping on the bridge before, he was downright terrified now. "Let’s try knocking on it, yeah? No need to stink up our sleeping place."

Huffing Lambert pulled his zipper up again. "Fine. Spoilsport."

"Okay so as I said, knocking three times on the bridge is supposed to summon the Goatman. A while back two teenagers have tried and reported hooves clackering on the bridge afterwards, stomping as though to shoo them away."

"What a load of bullshit. Why would that even work? What’s up with ghosts and demons being obsessed with knocking?"

"It’s supposed to mock the holy trinity." Jaskier said, shrugging.

Despite the argument sounding stupid, Jaskier still dreaded actually knocking on the rusty iron.

"Man if they do that just to mock upstairs they’re really petty assholes."

Jaskier groaned. "Lambert! Could you stop insulting them for just a few minutes?"

"You want a reaction from them, don’t you? These are the bad guys, bad guys won’t respond to you if you ask them politely. Best scream at them to get their attention. Always works for me."

Focussing the camera at his face again, Jaskier sorted his face into the blankest mask he could muster. "And this, dear hearts, is why our darling Lambert is banned from half the bars in our hometown. Now, I’ll be knocking and then Lambert will knock, if we haven’t been kicked of the demons turf by then we’ll explore the forest around us, where the Goatman is said to live."

"Pfff. Goatman. What a silly name."

"Hush. Take the camera for a second. And try to keep the image sharp this time."

"Yes, yes. Pesky technology. Should have upgraded by now."

"The low quality adds to the charm!" Jaskier defended his sentimental choices. He slowly inched over to the side of the bridge, hand coming up to touch the iron. It was cold. As expected. Good.

"You mean people enjoy playing what’s that pixel?"

"People also like looking at clouds and guessing shapes."

"Huh. Touché."

They were bickering too much again. He’ll have to apologize to Geralt for the length of footage he’ll have to parse through later on. Maybe with a blowjob. Or a kiss? Not a cake. The last time he had tried that it had ended in disaster and with him permanently banned from the kitchen.

Better not draw it out any longer either way. Taking a deep breath Jaskier let his knuckles collide with the bridge three times and then held his breath.

Seconds ticked by with only the occasional rustle of leaves and piep of a bat. It had gotten cold. Icy. So teeth chattering soon joined the background noise.

"Okay." he breathed between shivers. "Nothing happened. Your turn."

"Alright. Catch."

The camera flew in a perfect arc, but it was still sheer luck alone that made Jaskier catch it. Before he could start swearing at his friend though, Lambert had already marched over and knocked on the iron beam three times.

It was deadly silent on the bridge. Somewhere deep in the forest an owl hooted.

"This is gonna be one of those episodes where nothing happens, isn’t it? You wanna pull out your spirit box? Bust my eardrums a bit?"

Jaskier shook his head, camera clutched protectively against his chest. "Not a chance in hell. Let’s check out the forest, then get to prepare for sleep, I guess."

"Sure thing, boss."

Switching to night vision on his camera they started to walk over the bridge and into the eerie black of the surrounding forest. Jaskier stayed close to Lambert, for body heat and protection. He hated being out in the open like this much more than wandering the labyrinth like hallways of mental asylumns and spooky tourist attractions. At least with buildings you could slam shut doors and run out. And you only saw a fraction of what you could see.

But in the forest? There were miles of shadows spanning all sides and a myriad of little noises Jaskier wasn’t familiar with. And in case something attacked them? They would need to run far to get away, maybe even get lost if they accidently picked the wrong direction.

The low light of the waning moon and the bitter cold didn’t help to endear the location to Jaskier, either.

"You know what we should be scared of? Bears. And bats. Maybe boars. And-"

"If you say avocados I’m going to strangle you. Everyone will think it was the demon."

"I wanted to say thugs, but avocados work, too."

"Lambert."

"What? Avocados are evil Jaskier. Evil little pieces of shit created to bring pain and suffering."

Jaskier rolled his eyes and rubbed at his arms to stay warm. His nose already felt like an icicle. Fuck, why did he agree to sleep outside in the middle of autumn again?

"Just because you choked on one, once."

They bantered back and forth, staying close to the path and surveilling the forest. But nothing interesting caught their eye. There was darkness, of course. Lots of it, even. And sometimes things moved and rustled. Or there was a noise they decided to check out. But there was nothing there. Nothing they could see, at least. Jaskier still felt weird in a way. As though the place wasn’t quite right, not quite real. But that could have also been his nerves. It wouldn’t have been the first time he had felt that way. Their locations were always spooky, otherworldy in a sense. But nothing had ever happened. It was disheartening, but also pretty reassuring for whenever they ventured out again.

Getting back to the bridge they were relieved to find all their stuff still left untouched. Lambert was right, of course. Encountering thugs was always a bad possibility as well.

Lambert was especially eager to get into the backpack of snacks. Jaskier left him to it, opting to do the heavy lifting and to spread out their bedrolls. He would have liked to use a tent as well, but had ultimately decided against it. Nothing was scarrier than being trapped under a thin sheet of fabric while a supernatural entity roamed outside.

Pushing the bedrolls as close together as possible he sat their belongings at the feet of their sleeping place so they wouldn’t accidently push them off the side of the bridge in their sleep. If they could sleep that is.

"Lambert, stop hogging all the gummy worms and give me that jerky."

"Hm. Sweets and meat. We are feasting like kings tonight." Lambert snarked, handing over the demanded stuff and settling into his bedroll, Jaskier following soon after he had finished his meal and prepared the camera to continue to film them.

He didn’t think he would get a wink of sleep that night, but Lamberts furnace of a body provided enough heat to feel comfortable and not enough had happened to make Jaskier too nervous about closing his eyes. Maybe he was getting braver through it all. Maybe this whole ghost hunting thing actually did something for his self confidence.

Jaskier drifted lazily in and out of consciousness, the shift of the air and suddenly unnatural warmth coming from below and above only noticed through layers of fog and counted as a dream.

It was only through the creak of floor boards and the quiet clacker of hooves that the mist of sleep lifted and a metaphorical bucket of cold water was dumped on his head. Heart in his throat Jaskier was suddenly wide awake and very aware of all of his surroundings. He was also very unwilling to move any part of his body, including opening his eyes to see what was going on.

Because it was already very obvious what was going on. Lambert shifted beside him, warm as always and snoring lightly into his ear. But close to their heads there was another kind of heat and nearly silent shuffling. Something stood over them, moving slowly, creeping up on them. To what? Stomp on them? To throw them of the bridge?

The bleating of a goat filled the still night air and was immediately followed by a quiet, urgent "Shhh!"

Oh. A goat farmer then. Jaskiers heart settled a bit. Just some weird stranger with his pet goat going for a midnight stroll and stumbling upon them. What a coincidence.

Two hesitant clacks sounded as the stranger inched his way to Jaskiers side.

Wait. That sounded wrong. There should be more clacks. Lighter ones, too. Fuck!

Jaskiers eyes snapped open in shock, the gasp he let out alerting the stranger above him. Wide Yellow eyes darted down to stare at him, a faint red glow that seemed to come from the beings impressive, curled horns illuminating the heavy scars that ran down the right side of his face.

"Ahhhh!"

"What the fuck!"

"I am so sorry, please don’t panic!"

All was said or screamed in synchrony, Lambert shooting up into a sitting position, while Jaskier tried to worm himself out of his bedroll so he could get to his holy water pistol. He snatched it up a moment later, straightening up in front of the demon, pointing the gun at it with wobbling lips. The dim light helping him to-

"Wait a minute. Eskel?!"

And sure enough there he was, Geralts older half brother. But also not. For this version of Eskel had a set of horns that arched up into the sky, long, furry goat legs, a loin cloth hiding the more vulnerable bits, and a lion like, long tail that swished behind him in an anxious manner.

He was also carrying a small, brown white goat. The baby was half bundled up in a blanket and carefully cradled to the mans chest.

Eskel gave him a sheepish grin. "Hello Jaskier."

"What. Lambert did you know that your brother is a- Ahhh!"

What transpired next really wasn’t his fault. Lambert should have known better than to scare him in a situation like that. But it was as it was. Jaskier looked over to him to ask him that question, only to find his friend sporting horns and grinning at him with sharp teeth.

So Jaskier sprayed him. With holy water.

The screech that filled the air nearly burst Jaskiers eardrums. But he barely noticed in his panic. Throwing the pistol away he reached for Lambert, cursing and apologizing all the while. Eskel quickly set down his precious cargo as well and came over to inspect the damage Jaskier had done to his brother.

"It’s okay. It’s okay. Just some minor burns. They didn’t exactly give you the holiest of waters. It’ll heal in a minute."

"Owww. Fuck. Motherfucker."

"I’m sooo sorry! But seriously you shouldn’t have scared me like that! I had a gun!"

"Water pistol." Lambert corrected.

"It still hurt you!"

Eskel picked up his goat again with a sigh, the little thing happily munching away on her blanket. "Geralt will be so mad at us…"

~~~

"And that’s how I found out that my boyfriend is a demon!" Jaskier exclaimed, leaning back on the couch he was sitting on, leaning a bit more heavily into the side of said boyfriend.

They were both sitting in their living room, cuddled up together with two steaming cups of mulled wine on the coffee table in front of them. Geralt had one arm slung over Jaskiers shoulders, a gaint hand rubbing up and down Jaskiers arm. He looked at his lover with a tiny, fond smile, eyes glinting in amusement.

Yennefer sat opposite them, dressed in an all black, comfortable, yet stylish looking, woolen dress. She too had the edges of her lips turned up into a faintly enjoyable expressions. Out of the three of them, Jaskier was the only drunk one at the table. 

The fire crackled merrily in the hearth. And outside the snow continued to cover every surface, willing or not.

Jaskier let out a small hiccup before his eyes went wide and his head whipped to the side to stare at Geralt in horror.

"Oh no! Darling was that alright to tell? I didn’t accidently out you did I?" he babbled, already working himself halfway into a grand apology when both of his companions began to snicker.

"Jaskier." Yennefer said between fits of chuckles. "You do know that I’m a witch right?"

"Oh."

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote Lambert and Eskel as 12th century Shane and Ryan in one of the chapters in "Ghost of the Keep". And HamletsBoneArena commented that Eskel had to be Goatman. Thus this fic was born.


End file.
